Today I once again made what one of my coworkers has dubbed "crackies" instead of cookies, due to their highly addictive nature. Yes, these are the to-die-for Double Chocolate Expresso Toffee cookies. And this photo shows off my newest culinary purchase: a cookie scoop. I thought it sounded stupid at first, but then I had such a hard time with that last batch of cookies trying to convince a nice consistent amount of dough to get its ass off of the spoon/spatula/knife and onto the cookie sheet. The cookie scoop -- amazingly available at Kroger -- works very well, and made that step of the process go so much faster. No, I don't have a Cuisinart or food processor or dutch oven or meat thermometer or any of the popular toys of culinary divas, but I do have a cookie scoop. That should tell you something about me.
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Stand back, everybody. I am cooking today. No, it's NOT a sign of the Apocalypse. Stop laughing. If you've known me for a while, you know that cooking is not something I do much of. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't want to. If Fate/Karma/God/the Flying Spaghetti Monster intended me to cook, then why did it/he/she create so many fine restaurants? Cooking is so much work. You gotta shop for the ingredients, then do all the prep -- washing, chopping, slicing, grating, etc. -- and then the cooking, and then the worst part - the cleanup! When I cook, somehow cake batter winds up on the inside of the kitchen cabinets I haven't even opened since I moved into this condo, and Hollandaise sauce ends up on the ceiling. I don't know how it happens, it just does. I'll find a desiccated stalk of asparagus under the Hoosier cabinet three weeks after trying to "get it to a tender-crisp state, at which it is soft enough to chew but not yet soggy." Which is another reason I don't cook much: confusing recipes with terms like 'tender-crisp.' Those cornmeal cookies I made a while back? The recipe called for "all-purpose fine yellow cornmeal." But I couldn't find any yellow cornmeal that also had "all-purpose" on the label, let alone "fine." The all-purpose was white cornmeal, not yellow. WTF was I supposed to do? This kind of thing happens to me all the time. The recipe says use ABC and there is no ABC on the shelf, only BCA and CAB, and I have to toss a coin and take a chance on buying the exact wrong thing. I learned the difference between self-rising and all-purpose flour the hard way. When I first started dating the Boyfriend some thirteen years ago, I was all dizzy in love and wanted to serve him all these amazing gourmet meals prepared with my own two hands…. After six months or so, I realized that when he said he didn't care what I cooked, or even if I cooked at all, he really meant it. Yeah, he likes my meatloaf, and my roast, or lasagna, but he is also completely and utterly satisfied with a hamburger or grilled cheese sandwich. When he kept dragging me back to certain restaurants that I find loathsome, I realized that -- bless his heart, I love the man dearly -- he has only the most basic of palates. If I put a plate of, say, ravioli from a five-star Italian restaurant, and ravioli by Chef Boyardee, in front of him, I don't honestly think he'd have a preference. However, a FB friend has mentioned her brisket recipe a couple of times recently, and it reminded me of the brisket I'd had at the house of a friend some twenty years ago. It was amazingly tender and juicy. In fact, I still have the Corning Ware dish in which she cooked it, because she sent it and all the leftovers home with me because I'd loved it so much. (She didn't get the dish back because she stills owes me money, but that's another long story for another time.) I'm not certain this means anything, but both of these women are Jewish. Is brisket a Jewish thing? Or maybe a Northern thing? Because growing up in the South, the only brisket I ever even heard of was barbecued. Or maybe I was just deprived and isolated as a child. I grew up eating a little "weird" because my father was the ultimate picky eater; if it didn't contain ground beef and/or potatoes, he didn't eat it. My mother cooked what Daddy ate, at least until around 1980, when she stopped trying to be June Cleaver and my house became a fend-for-yourself zone. My sister and I ate a LOT of Banquet chicken pot pies between 1979 and 1981. I remember quite clearly the first time I ever saw tuna fish, at my friend Mindy's house. I came home and asked Mom to make it for me. She had to call Mindy's mother for the recipe. I remember, too, the first time I ever ate a salad. We were having dinner in Disney World, and the waitress asked what kind of dressing I wanted with my salad. I blinked at her. Salad? Did she mean, like, macaroni salad? Potato salad? What's all this green wrinkly stuff on the plate? Mom told the waitress to bring me French dressing, but I think she was just picking one of the three choices (French, Italian and Blue Cheese) at random. I think this was before Ranch had been invented. (Later on, for years, I would think a salad was iceberg lettuce and Ranch dressing.) Now, the nearly world-famous brisket recipe from my friend, Laura, is the one she uses for Passover meals. (Yes, any of you Southern Baptists from my childhood who have not yet unfriended me, I have learned slightly more about Passover than we ever learned from Charlton Heston, and guess what? Jewish people aren't actually going to hell! How about that! AND she's from New York. How about that!) She kept talking about all the fabulous stuff she was cooking this year, and making me really hungry for things I've never eaten before. I went about this a little bit backwards, though. I bought the slab of meat yesterday at Kroger on a wild impulse. Only then did I actually read Laura's recipe. OHMGOD. I could lead the Israelites out of Egypt easier than I could cook according to her recipe. She's a SERIOUS cook, apparently. I glanced half way down the page and saw "On day two, open your pot and remove the layer of fat on top…." DAY TWO? Worse, the list of ingredients called for (among other things) sun-dried tomatoes, freshly grated horseradish, shallots (I am not even exactly sure what a shallot is), fennel, sherry, and a "dab of anchovy paste." My heart sank when I realized I didn't even a Dutch oven to cook the damned thing in. And how am I supposed to cook anything without Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup or Crisco?* But I already had this enormous slab of meat, so off I went to Google, searching for alternative brisket recipes to get an idea of what substitutions might be possible. The first bright idea was realizing I could cook this in a crock pot. Thanks to my friend, Kristen Sojourner, I have a very nice and roomy crock pot. It also happens to be a very sexy candy-apple red, but that's just a bonus. So I have taken a number of different recipes and mushed them all together. I skipped the one that basically called for a 24-ounce bottle of ketchup and a packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix. That was a little more trailer park than I wanted to go. I felt better about using Worcestershire sauce when I remembered that it has both horseradish and anchovies in it. The recipe I wound up going with calls for mushrooms as well as onions, and I used Marsala wine instead of sherry. Honestly, it looks a little suspicious at this point. It will not be ready until tomorrow, but it is beginning to smell pretty damned good. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out Maybe one day when I've got more time, and can find a Dutch oven, and figure out what a shallot is, I'll try Laura's recipe verbatim. But in the meantime, this will do. If it turns out badly, I can always feed it to the Boyfriend. *Ya'll realize that I'm just exaggerating for the sake of humor, right? I can cook without Campbell's Cream of Mushroom. Sometimes I used Cream of Chicken. Well, reviews are beginning to trickle in for my new book, Something Blue, and I'm tickled pink to see that readers are really enjoying it. I think it's fabulous, but I'm a bit biased. If you read Something Blue -- or any of my books -- and enjoy it, please take a moment and post a review on Amazon or Goodreads or your personal blog or on a bathroom wall somewhere or anywhere at all. We poor, pitiful writers lock ourselves away from the world and labor all alone, sweating every word and punctuation mark, all in hopes of telling you a good story, so if you could return a little love, I would appreciate it sooooooooo much. And besides, you'll make my mother happy. But here are a few reviews so far, and I didn't even have to pay any of these wonderful readers to say these nice things! GREAT BEACH READ by Angie Q: "This is the sort of book I enjoy when my brain decides to take a day off. Loved, Loved, Loved this book.The characters are recognizably Southern in every way and in all the various quirks. It was laugh-out-loud funny in parts and sweet and touching in others. It caught the essence of the crazy roller coaster in the week preceding a Southern wedding and dealing with all the crazy, neurotic, infuriating relatives (especially mothers and sisters) that you love." COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN by T Wright: "Best book I've read in ages! The characters are loveable, down to earth. I read this book out loud to my husband because he kept asking what was so funny. Someone should take notice and make a movie. YES! It was that good!" A TOUCHING, LAUGH-OUT-LOUD STORY by aacaboo: Lots of characters, a great mix of people & real life, "Happenings". I'm from a big Albanian Family & the before's and after's ....rehearsal, etc...could have been written about my family. A good laugh-out-loud book, great story line. Highly recommend it. EASY READ by Susan Hastie: "This book was one that you didn't want to put down. The characters were very colorful and about as disfunctional as they could get. I found this book to be quite funny in parts. Thoroughly enjoyed it." FUN READ by Bobbie Largent: "I really enjoyed reading this book. Had a hard time putting it down once I started reading it. Loved the characters." GREAT CHARACTERS AND A STORY THAT WILL KEEP YOU MORE THAN ENTERTAINED by Christeymg: "As a Southerner I saw people I know and people I'm related to in this story. Funny, sassy and smart. I understand the comparison to Steel Magnolias (which I love) but this is a story all to itself. Grab a copy and get ready for a truly enjoyable escape. Great summer beach read!" DELIGHTFUL by Ann Lindell: "You'll recognize the many Southern female archetypes in this tale of the preparations for a small town wedding. The smart, sassy characters and hilarious dialog will have you laughing out loud! Highly recommended." Okay, you know those FABULOUS cookies I got at the Porter Flea market last week? I bought two packets of five cookies each for $10. Only today, I am balancing my bank statement and see that I was charged $100.06 for those cookies.
Now, I really enjoyed those cookies, but seriously, for $100.06, I think the woman should have thrown in a couple of free samples. Thank god I kept her card. It doesn't have her personal contact info on it, just the restaurant where she is the pastry chef. The answering machine informed me that they are closed on Tuesdays, so I had to leave a message. I know it was an honest mistake, she was using her smart phone and one of those square card readers, but damn it, she has $90 of my money that — i know it's hard to believe — I happen to need quite a lot. I have plans this weekend! I am just thankful that this did not set off a string of bounced checks! i'm POOR and I don't have a lot of cushion in my checking account, damn it! Adding insult to injury, i decided to play it safe and call my bank, first to make certain nothing had bounced, and second to ask if I should file a dispute over the charge. I did not want to be told later that I should have reported it immediately -- because you never know how banks and other businesses will try to screw you. Well, it took half an hour on the phone with Suntrust, jumping through hoops to get to a live person in customer service. If I were God, I would outlaw automated phone systems, I swear I would. I kept telling it i wanted to talk to a representative, and pushing zero, and it still kept insisting, 'In order to make sure your call gets to the right department, tell me in a few words…." ARRGGGGHHHHHH Finally I get a person. And the accent is so bad I can hardly understand the guy. After going round and round, asking him to repeat himself, he says yes, he does see where my account was charged $100.06 on 6/9/14. I nearly screamed, "I KNOW THAT! I KNEW THAT BEFORE I CALLED YOU! THAT'S WHY I CALLED YOU!!" He says he has to transfer me to another department if I want to file a dispute of the charge. I say, fine okay, whatever. After being on hold FOREVER, i have this woman on the line. Her accent is terrible too, but finally we understand each other and she says I should just wait and see if I can get the vendor to correct the charge, because filing a dispute will take a lot longer. Hmmm… is this just a tricky way of telling me "Go away and don't make this our problem"? Maybe…. Before hanging up, I asked her as politely as I could manage, where she was located. There's a pause, and finally, she says, "Offshore, ma'am. The Phillipines." I think I am going to find a new bank. On the average Suntrust has been okay, at least since the massive screw up fifteen years ago when my wallet was stolen at Kroger. They closed my account and then gave me a new one, but neglected to reroute the direct deposit of my paycheck to the new account. Instead, they put it in the old one, which was closed, right? So i couldn't get to my money! Yippee! That was a fun time! Bounce charges out the wazoo! But I finally got them to fix everything and eat those charges. But I don't want to do business with them anymore if they, like so many other businesses, have shipped their customer service jobs overseas to people I can't even understand. I hate sounding like an ugly american, but seriously, if your customers can't understand you, that's not customer service. Something has been wrong with my right arm over several days, now, but yesterday, for some reason, I woke up in greater than usual pain, and it just kept getting worse. By around 1 pm, I started crying. At my desk. At work. I'm sniveling. And nothing helped. Not ice, not the brace, not the four Aleve, six tylenol or eight Advil taken in the course of eight hours. Not the first hydrocodone. Nor the second. The third hydrocodone, however, taken around 9 pm, put me to sleep, which was all I was praying for at that point, assuming that a swift and merciful death was out of the question. At some point I called the hand specialist my GP had referred me to on Monday, and begged to be seen as soon as possible. Today at 3 pm, I saw him. The visit was mainly comprised of the doctor poking and pressing and thumping and asking, "Does that hurt?" His diagnosis? "Probably tendonitis, and probably carpel tunnel, but we'll have to send you somewhere else for THAT test." After he suggests all the stuff that any moron without a medical degree would guess, which happens to be the stuff I'm already trying (rest, ice, braces, anti-inflamatories), I ask him, "Is that it? That's all you can suggest when I'm in such pain I can't hold anything, I can't sleep, I can barely fill out your freakin' 20 pages of forms?" "Well, I could give you a cortisone shot. Wanna try that?" Of course, I said yes. As he prepares the syringe, he smiles and says, "You're not gonna like me much later tonight." "I don't like you very much right now," I say, flexing the hand that he has set to throbbing again with all his probing. "What happens tonight?" "Well, once this lidocaine I'm spraying on your elbow wears off," he grins (I swear, he grinned!), "your elbow is gonna hurt a lot until the cortisone kicks in, probably tomorrow." Before I can tell him to get the hell away from me, he says, "Okay, here's a little stick." Yes, there is a little stick. Not too bad. I sigh in relief. Then he says, "Okay, now you're gonna feel some pressure." OMIFREAKINGOD, SOME PRESSURE? No, asshole, this is not SOME PRESSURE! This feels like someone is trying to shove a kabob skewer through my elbow. Perhaps it was just my imagination but I swear I felt metal scraping against bone. And it just goes on! The "pressure" continues until I am gasping and trying to curl into a fetal position, stopped only because he has my right arm held down on the table. I think I may have used the F bomb. More than once. IT HURT. VERY MUCH. It's also possible I hissed at him. "And I'm trying to make it bleed a little," the sadistic bastard tells me. "That will help the healing process." SERIOUSLY? How about screaming? Does that help the healing process? What about smacking the living daylights out of the doctor? Should I try that and find out? Finally it is over. I stagger out of there with a bruise forming on my elbow around a red puncture mark. And as he predicted so glibly, it is beginning to hurt. I have taken one hoarded hydrocodone, and will probably take another one in a few minutes before I go to bed. Damn it, another doctor bill piles up for no real new information, no significant help. Maybe the cortisone will help, but I won't know for a while. I intended to get so much done today. Of course, I intend that every day. But right now, all I can think about is tacos.
Or should that be "are" tacos? Damned plurals. Life is too short to stress unduly about subject-verb agreement. (For me, not for you, of course. In the event that your subjects and verbs do not agree properly, I shall taunt you mercilessly. You'd expect no less, right?) Anyway. Yesterday we stopped in at the Porter Flea preview -- a craft and local goods market off Chestnut and 4th. Parking was ridiculous, so I don't know what it'll be like for the actual event today. I sort of made my own space, cause, I'm like, just that kind of creative individual, right? Of course, the boyfriend/partner-in-crime did not find my creative use of a one-way street (i.e. going the "wrong" way) at all agreeable, but I salute him for not shrieking like a little boy. He just dug his fingers into the door, cringed and said in a really admirably steady voice, "YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY." I love him, even when he's judging me like that. It was weird being at an arts and crafts event where there was nobody I knew. Except for Harry Underwood, local artist who was a fellow member of the Plowhaus during my tenure there, though I am sure Harry doesn't remember me at all. I said hello, and he gave me a sort of blank look, but then, I think that's the only expression Harry has. There are those who think Harry is a little odd, and those who think Harry wants everybody to think he's a little odd as part of his artistic persona. All I know is that Harry's work sells for a lot more than mine. I was surprised to see him there; the event was entirely too self-consciously, yet innocently, hip for an eccentric like Harry. In fact, the boyfriend and I were looking around wondering if we'd missed an age requirement sign somewhere, because everybody -- vendors and patrons alike -- seemed to be under thirty. It was a very hipster crowd, and while there was some interesting stuff there, there was a dismaying cooker-cutter quality to most of the goods. Jewelry and clothes were all very minimalistic. Almost no painters besides Harry but a ton of print makers, whose work all looked pretty much the same. And they were all so young and earnest! My cynical heart aches for them. Of the interesting things I did like: Rebekah Turshen, the pastry chef from City House restaurant in Germantown -- which I will now HAVE to try out -- was there selling her homemade gourmet cookies. OMG. She makes a bunch of different kinds but i fell in love with the buttermilk cornmeal cookies. I know, it doesn't sound very appealing but they were AMAZING. I also bought a few of the chocolate expresso toffee cookies, but I am forcing myself not to open the bag until tomorrow. There are only about six cookies in a bag. There was a booth with a young woman selling handmade eyeglass frames. I'm not sure how she makes them, they looked totally professional but in some really retro and fun styles. I would have bought a pair of these champagne colored cat-eyes, except that I am poor, and had already blown my entire food budget for the coming week on 12 cookies. There was a guy there who made these head/face sculptures in little boxes, using mostly polymer clay and found objects. One of the found objects was actual bird legs. Yes, legs taken from a (hopefully) dead bird. Strangely creepy and yet intriguing. (But then, I have this unsettling but persistent desire for a bird skull.) And I knew it would happen eventually but yes, I ran into someone making sock monkeys in funky costumes with hair and stuff. I like the name of her company, "Show Me the Monkeys." I think mine are cuter but she does a good job. I looked at her pricing and knew that, like me, she's not making enough on them to cover the real cost of time and materials. Not unless she's got a sweatshop of illegals sewing for her. Strangely, seeing all this did not make me want to get back into craft events. It's just too much work. My feet started to hurt just looking at all those booths. Now, all I can think of is tacos. I fear I shall have to just go down to Los Tres Amigos for dinner. Maybe I can trade them a cookie for a taco. The wait is over! "Something Blue" is not only available, but tomorrow, May 8, you can get it ABSOLUTELY FREE. And if you miss it tomorrow, well, don't lose heart. Because it's only .99 every day! Why so cheap? Because gosh darn it, I just really want you all to read it! And if you read it, and like it (and I know you will!) then please, oh, pretty please, leave me a nice review on Amazon and GoodReads and anywhere else you can. As an independent author, it's hard getting publicity - especially these days, when it seems every other book out there has half naked people writhing around on the cover. Don't get me wrong, I like a good naked writhe as much as the next red-blooded American girl, but you know what I mean. I need all those people to stop looking for Fifty Shades of Mr. Grey and have some good clean fun for a change! If you don't want to leave a review, at least go to Amazon and give me a "LIKE" please. I would really appreciate it. |
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